It is a great card. Motorola DSP is amazing.
http://www.turtlebeach.com/support/entry/63016883/

You could probably get General Midi with it, but I'm not sure (GM works with TB Pinnacle).

It has no General MIDI, unless you install a daughterboard. Tahiti is compatible with PCM part of TB Multisound Classic:

The new design of MultiSound was about 12 centimetres shorter over the previous one, but the other internals and the architecture remained the same. This sound card entered the market somewhere in 1994 under the name of MultiSound Tahiti while the original design had been renamed to MultiSound Classic.

If I'm right, you may use Tahiti with few games based on late versions of DIGPAK sound driver library. Those I know of are:

Burnt Rubber
Captain Bible in the Dome of Darkness
Cyberstrike
Jammit
Jane's Simulations: US Navy Fighters '97 (Gold)
Jonny Quest: Curse of the Mayan Warriors
Kasparov's Gambit
Master Won Liu 3D
Multimedia Kaleidosonics
Pickle Wars
Rallo Gump
Red Crystal: The Seven Secrets of Life
Road Hog!
Strike Squad
The 7th Guest v. 1.3
The Grandest Fleet
The Road to Baghdad
Thunderstrike
Walls of Rome
Warlords II Deluxe
Warriors of Legend
Zorro

I believe you can take the sound driver (multisnd.com) from any of them (or from dmkit150.zip), and use with any DIGPAK-based game, since there was quite a number of them.

Except from games, I guess its sound quality is pretty good and I may use it on a Windows 95 build for mp3s, pci radio card or online streaming... or am I expecting too much?

Try it. Turtle Beach sound cards have ultra good sound.
You be the judge.

Will do! Thanks for all the info.
One last question: this or the awe64 gold for sound quality? xD

GeorgeMan wrote:

Will do! Thanks for all the info.
One last question: this or the awe64 gold for sound quality? xD

Really tough to say (I'm assuming you're *just* talking analog output quality) - if neither has interference issues and both are functioning properly, it should be pretty hard to pick them apart (that is, generally speaking, picking one D/A or opamp or etc apart from another is generally quite a feat assuming neither is botched-up too bad). The AWE offers "more" functionality as well, like GM synth, and S/PDIF output, and is a few years newer (Tahiti was introduced in 1994, while AWE64 was introduced in 1996).

Not sure I'd hook a Windows 95 build up to the Internet for streaming - it probably won't work so well. It's nothing against the card - it's more that I'm guessing the machine the card is going into isn't likely going to play very well with modern Flash-heavy multimedia content. 😢

No flash at all, just radio from a pci card and web radio from ip. 😀
When I find time I will test both.

Could you please test your Tahiti against one of the games I mentioned?

Currently I'm 519km away from the card, as I'm offering my obligatory military service to my country...
So I'm afraid the earliest I can test it is around the beginning of August... 🙁

I have tested my Monterey (which is Tahiti + Rio daughterboard) and can confirm that [at least some] games designed to work with TB Multisound Classic also work with Tahiti. Of course, that only true about PCM sound, not MIDI music played through Proteus synth - that would only work on Multisound Classic.

It also should be noted that at least three different PCM drivers (multisnd.com) exist. I made it with a latest version (has 1994 signature inside and size of 13680 bytes).

However, I have no MIDI in DOS through RIO and yet have to find how to enable it.

The problem with Rio is that it uses a non standard port for midi. usually 290 instead of 330, you might need to check that. Also remember that Wavefront synths need to be initialized first.

GeorgeMan wrote:

Will do! Thanks for all the info.
One last question: this or the awe64 gold for sound quality? xD

These numbers speak for themselves, Tahiti IS one of the best sound cards ever in terms of digital audio performance.
http://alasir.com/reviews/soundbench/page5of5.html

Too bad almost nobody cares about those numbers including myself unless you are a pro musician but again why would you bother with such and old card. Definitely is no for listening to compressed formats such as mp3.

vmunix wrote:

The problem with Rio is that it uses a non standard port for midi. usually 290 instead of 330, you might need to check that. Also remember that Wavefront synths need to be initialized first.

Err... How do I initialize the Wavefront synth then?

bristlehog wrote:

vmunix wrote:

The problem with Rio is that it uses a non standard port for midi. usually 290 instead of 330, you might need to check that. Also remember that Wavefront synths need to be initialized first.

Err... How do I initialize the Wavefront synth then?

I don't have the Monterey manual at hand atm, now I'm in doubt whether the initialization is for the MPU-401 interface and the effects processor and if that includes a driver for the Tahiti to communicate with the Rio under DOS, most likely if you are using the Rio in another waveblaster compatible soundcard you don't need anything, but for the Tahiti + Rio on real mode DOS you definitely need some TSR drivers. I can dig out that info for you in a couple of days.

Dig it out please. I have the Monterey manual but couldn't find anything significant on the topic.

bristlehog wrote:

Dig it out please. I have the Monterey manual but couldn't find anything significant on the topic.

And you were right, reading the manual there's nothing related to use the card under DOS, I was confused with Maui which indeed have a setupsnd.exe which you must execute to enable it on DOS.
However you can try this> http://support.turtlebeach.com/entry/59036839/
apparently is to enable the MPU401 interface to use programs such as cakewalk for DOS it should work with games as well. I haven't tried it tho.

Did you manage to run the card under DOS?

And also, can I connect a different daughter board to this sound card? The woman that sold it to me sent the RIO board to recycling.
When I take a look at the connector the pin number 1 is on the left.

Stojke wrote:

Did you manage to run the card under DOS?

And also, can I connect a different daughter board to this sound card? The woman that sold it to me sent the RIO board to recycling.
When I take a look at the connector the pin number 1 is on the left.

Arrrggg!!! shieeeeet.

As a rule of thumb if the daughter board works on a PCI sound card it won't fit on an ISA.
NEC X385 won't work, Crystal S-W1/C although it was for an ISA sound card it has the pins reversed.

Creative WaveBlaster's will work, also Kurzweil HOMAC is an excellent replacement for RIO although is doesn't support the sampler.

But NEC X385 works on plenty of ISA cards. I could place it upside down, but thats just silly.
Thanks for the reply, i guess i will just listen some CD audio than 😀